


The Kids Are Alright

by Phrenotobe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Good future in my homestuck? Absolutely, Hijinks, Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange, I am also baffled by makeup colours, June Egbert - Freeform, Makeup 101 with Jade Harley, Shenanigans, Sibling Bonding, Sisters being huge dorks, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22237657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: “Please, Jade,” June says confidently, digging into the calm attitude of a news reader who would rather be commenting on duck ponds, “I was given these eyes by myself in a weird experimental lab twenty-five years ago after I was created out of green time goo. I do not know what colours mean.”
Relationships: John Egbert & Jade Harley, June Egbert & Jade Harley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	The Kids Are Alright

**Author's Note:**

> If you are disegnidipizzo on tumblr, please leave me a comment, and I'll link this to your ao3 account as a proper gift!

June takes off her glasses and lays them down on the table. She pats at her cheeks, delighted by their softness, and meets her eyes in the mirror. She’s had a late night, too many movies and up too late. Her eyes are rimmed dark with sleeplessness. 

Day five of the Harleybert hangout, and she seems to be the only one suffering after the epic action movie primer list. 

Jade’s buzzing around the back of the room, opening her backpack and bags. She’s jangling with bracelets and necklaces and rings, her skirts a whirl of colour as she spins around to find something else from one more pocket. The end of her skinny tie almost touches the floor when she bends. 

Two years, six months in, and June has never really touched makeup. Her glasses hide the space around her eyes anyway, she touches her cheeks and chin frequently, habits and old tics as she navigates the internet, weighs up the pros and cons of takeout food and decides on shopping lists.

Jade jams her face up next to hers for selfies nearly every day, scatters weirdly-coloured lipsticks and brilliant sets of pressed powder arranged like eggs in rectangular boxes over the coffee table, nail polish on the counter in the bathroom. June likes how they look, but it’s hard to take that step. 

Jade lets out a triumphant “Ah-ha!” somewhere near the kitchen.  
“Get me a soda!” June calls.  
“Get it yourself!” Jade calls back. 

June fiddles with a pencil, poking the sharp end. It leaves a navy-blue smudge on her fingertip. There’s just... so much stuff to know. And just like playing SBURB all those years ago, it feels like she’s stepping again into a great and deep unknown. 

She’s distracted when she hears the pop and click of a can. Jade walks back into the room, jangling rings and bangles. She deposits a can on the dressing table, dropping a bag of makeup on the table next to it. It manages somehow to be transparent, neon and glittery. 

“It’s time,” she says.  
“Is it?” June says. “Hey, is this my soda?”

Jade slides it a little further over toward June’s hand.  
“I mean, not if you don’t want to do it. I’m not some kind of asshole, June.”  
June hesitates over taking the drink right away. Something about working on her impulsiveness. Therapy, counselling, whatever. It’s just a soda, June. 

“Put it off until after I finish my drink?”  
“Will it take you until after your next one too?”  
“It’s a big thing!” June protests, “You can’t just go out and put goop on your face!”  
“Nah,” Jade says. She picks up a stick of lipstick, flicks it up into the air to catch. She grabs it awkwardly, groping to put it back together after the tube starts to slide out of the case, “Fuck. No, it’s fine June! It is not science. I should know, that is kind of my thing!” 

Jade drags a chair across the floor, taking a seat by her side.  
“Look at this bullshit on my face. It took me ten minutes and now I am walking around with gold around my eyes and bits of purple. It is the coolest thing.” 

“Cooler than firing guns while you fall and scream?”  
“I mean, you will look cooler doing it,” Jade says wisely, “I think that Arnold had the right idea when he painted his face that time he was fighting stuff. The one where he’s a commando guy. That one.”  
“Predator?”  
“Hmm.”  
“Terminator.”  
“No, he was a robot that time.”  
“Determinator.”  
“You’re fucking with me.”  
“Yeah, I am. Total Recall?”  
“I don’t think he painted his face in that one. He just pulled a huge tracker thing out of his nose.”  
“Haha, gross,” June chirps, “Anyway!”  
“Anyway,” Jade agrees, “Can I show you some stuff?”

June finally grabs her soda, tipping up to drink it.  
“Will I be able to drink soda afterwards?” she says, squinting at the can.  
“Do you wanna know a cool secret?” Jade says, bringing out a whole can of soda from a pocket and popping the tab, a look on her face like a wise sage dolling out information.  
“I think I love lipstick the most, because it tells people which drinks are mine.”  
“Neat!” June says, “Also how many cans do you have in there?”  
“Just this one. The airport stole my 7-Up when I checked into the flight and added it to their jungle juice at the gate.”  
“Booo.”  
“Right?” Jade says, “Ughhhh.”  
“Ughhhhhh!” June replies.  
“Ghhhhhh.”  
“Glarrrgghh.”

Jade takes a sip, sticking out her tongue.  
“Those assholes owe me sooooo many drinks. Hey, what’s your favourite colour again?”

June gives the table another nervous stare. A set of six mostly-identical colours are near her right hand, slightly blurry since she’s had her glasses off for a while.  
“Uh,” June says, “Pink...? I’m a girl now Jade, it’s got to be pink.”  
June picks it up gingerly and offers it for inspection. A brand name flashes silver as the tray tilts toward the light. 

“This is peach,” Jade says, “You can tell because they’re named after fruit flavours. Or yoghurt. Melba can go either way I think. I read somewhere it’s actually a pudding?”  
“The worst,” June says, “Ok. Not pink. Or things that aren’t pink.”  
“Hm!” Jade says, “Not pink. How about blue?”  
“Won’t that clash with my eyes or something?” June asks.  
“Since when does blue clash with blue, June?” Jade says.

“Please, Jade,” June says confidently, digging into the prosaic, calm attitude of a news reader who would rather be commenting on duck ponds, “I was given these eyes by myself in a weird experimental lab twenty-five years ago after I was created out of green time goo. I do not know what colours mean.”

Jade giggles until she snorts, dropping the pink - or peach - rectangle back on the dressing table. She stands, drapes her arm around June’s shoulders, resting her chin on the top of June’s fluffy, cowlicked head. She fluffs it up a little more, stroking it back down and tucking it back behind June’s shoulders. 

“Just pick a colour, this is going to be fine,” she says. Her rings are heavy, and big, and weirdly shaped in some cases, but by the magic of her innate poise and tomfoolery, it doesn’t catch at June’s hair at all. 

“Hey, do you want to get this styled?” she asks.  
“I dunno,” June says, “Did you style yours? I’m keeping mine wild and free. Like an antelope out on the mountain range, eating moss.”  
Jade snickers at the multiple inaccuracies, patting her sister’s hair. It springs back up against her hand, undefeatable. Since she’s grown it long, they’ve both found out something new - June’s hair falls into natural curls. June can’t tell if she likes it yet. It just sort of does what it wants, but when it looks good, it looks great. 

“At least use a good conditioner,” Jade says.  
“I will,” June promises. She shakes her head gently, tickled by all the fidgeting. “How do I tell if it’s good?”  
“I guess ‘Enriching’ on the front somewhere?” Jade says, shaking out her own hair.  
Long, down to her waist and past it. It absorbs light like an inky sea. “I don’t know, June! I’ll just give you one of mine. I brought five, since I didn’t know how long I would be here.”  
“Oh my god,” June says, “Jade, that is so many.”  
“I go through three in a month!”  
“Before or after you use your magic witch powers to make them bigger?”  
“It doesn’t work like that,” Jade says, “I’m not really making more of it. Complex chemistry should _not_ be fucked with! Also i haven’t worked out what the formula is yet.”  
“You wouldn’t download a car.”  
“I’d pirate shampoo,” Jade says, “Am pirating, I mean. It’s more like a beauty care torrent right now. I’m still pulling all the bits together.”  
“To make more hair goo that makes your hair do the thing.”  
“Yeah,” Jade says, “Swoosh. Anyway, are we doing your face today or what?”  
“I promised I would,” June says dutifully.  
“Pinky promise?” Jade asks.  
“What are you, five?” June asks, holding her hand up.  
Jade hooks her finger around hers, giving her a grin.

“So,” Jade says. “Since you can’t pick a colour i’m going to give you directions! Grab that pencil from over there and sharpen it.”  
June pats around, finding a regular pencil, a sharpener, the weird pencil she messed with earlier, and some kind of stumpy stick thing that isn’t lipstick. 

“Help me, Obi-juan,” she says.  
“Second one,” Jade says helpfully.  
“That is a pencil sharpener, Jade.”  
“The other second one. You know I’m left handed. I count it the other way.”  
June rearranges her hand and offers up the stub of pencil.  
“What is this meant to do?”  
“Draw with it, duh,” Jade says. She fishes her own out of the bag on the table. She dunks back into her seat and lifts it up to her face.  
“Follow me.”  
June sharpens the pencil, flicking the shavings into the wastepaper basket.  
“Are you-”  
“Can’t talk,” Jade says, drawing an effortless line across her eyelid, close to her eyelashes, “There. Like that.”  
June lifts the pencil up to her eye, squinting.  
“It’s going to poke me in the eye,” she says.  
“No, just-” Jade leans over, adjusts June’s arm, “Rest the edge of your hand on your cheekbone. Rose taught me!”  
June nods, giving it a try. It scratches and her hand clenches, but she achieves a line. It zags mildly, like it got distracted at the last minute. June studies her sister’s face in the mirror. 

“How do you make it so smooth?”  
“You just have to do it a couple thousand times more,” Jade says, “Now, grab one of those white circle things from the packet, and put some of this stuff on it.”  
“What am I putting on this time?”  
Jade sighs, nudging the cotton pads further over.  
“You’re taking it off. Good makeup practise, June! Also, you’ll want to check which stuff you can use around your eyes and which you can’t.”  
“Huh,” June says.  
“It’s not a _big_ thing, but it’s a thing. Oh! And don’t use anything that has the word ‘microbeads’ on it. It’s bad for the environment and also your face.”  
Jade beams into the mirror, watching June remove the stripe over her eyelid. All of that, just to put something on once, and take it off again.  
“Yeah,” she says, “I like dolphins and stuff. Is it gone?”

Jade shuffles to look, tilting her head sideways to get a proper view.  
“All gone for now! Hey, do you want dinner?”  
“Is that it?” June asks, “None of this other stuff? Lipstick?”  
Jade shrugs.  
“Movie primer night six. Romcoms! You need to see Mama Mia at least once, and we can do this tomorrow too. You don’t have to wear makeup to be a girl, June. But you’ve got to have an appreciation for the arts!”


End file.
